If you sell books online then you know that back to school season is a great time for us.  Students are always looking for a bargain.  I have hundreds of academic books and a decent amount of current textbooks so I sell my fair share this time of year.  Now that we are at mid-September the textbook season is winding down and textbook return season is starting up.  This is the time of year when I have the most returns. 

 Students drop classes or buy the wrong edition or no longer want their books for any number of reasons.  So this time of year is is important for us to cintinue to implement excellent customer service when handling returns.  If somebody buys a book and there is something “wrong” with it and they want to return it I accept it and provide a full refund (including shipping).  If a person decides they no longer need the book I accept a return and refund the purchase price but not the shipping.  This is my simple policy and I have never had an issue with a buyer. 

There is almost never a case when I do not accept returns – most markets require you to accept them (see Amazon’s A-Z policy).  I keep my return policy simple.  The only time I have not accepted a return is when a significant amount of time has passed between the purchase date and the return date or if the books condition is materially different from when I sold it (such as full of highlighting).  Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of the customer experience when I run a business from home and do not interact with the customers.

We are less then a month away from one of the busiest times fo the year fro online booksellers.  All the college kids are going back to school soon and looking to save money on books (for more beer maybe).  If you have not alreay – now is the time to stock up on shipping supplies.

If you sell remainders (there are some that specialize in universtity presses) the text book season is when they move – so you could find some titles to buy in preparation for the school year.  Try Great Jones for academic books – the margins on these are not great but if you can find a good title to buy in bulk in might be worth it.

Also – be prepared for lots of questions if your listings are not complete.  Make sure you properly list what edition text book you are selling and if it has highlighting, underlining or margin notes – I make it the first thing in the item description.  Do not sell international editions (or if you do be prepared to be banned by eBay and Amazon as it is against their terms).

More on textbook season soon